Page 1
Ninth Circuit:
Failure to Notice, False Information Undermined Immunity
Social Workers Were Not Entitled to Be Shielded in Suit Alleging Constitutional Violations
By Kimber Cooley, Staff Writer
Two San Bernardino County social workers were not entitled to qualified or absolute immunity in an action alleging constitutional rights violations for failing to provide parents with notice of a detention hearing concerning their child where the social workers had the ability to contact them and provided false information to the court as to why the parents were not noticed, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday.
The opinion, authored by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., affirms the denial of immunity by Senior District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California. Judge Lawrence VanDyke and Senior Judge Carlos T. Bea joined in the opinion.
In February 2020, Sydney Rieman and her husband, Steven L. Rieman, as the guardian ad litem for their child K.B., filed suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 against social workers Mirta Johnson and Gloria Vasquez. The Riemans alleged that Vazquez and Johnson violated their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to provide them with notice of the detention hearing and by providing false information to the court.
The parties each filed summary judgment motions in the trial court. Vazquez and Johnson argued in their motion for absolute and qualified immunity.
Marshall held that they were not entitled to immunity and granted the Riemans’ motion for summary judgement “as to [their] first and second claims for violation of [their] Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights” on the grounds that the two social workers had failed to provide notice of the detention hearing and had engaged in judicial deception.
Detention Action
On Sept. 6, 2018, K.B. was an infant and only 20 days old when Sydney Rieman placed him on a bed and went to the bathroom to wash her hands. K.B. fell off the bed.
Sydney Rieman rushed the child to the nearest hospital, High Desert Medical Center. Medical personnel examined K.B. and observed him for four hours before sending him home.
Out of caution as a mandated reporter, a nurse reported the incident to San Bernardino County’s Child and Family Services (“CFS”) hotline. The referral listed Sydney Rieman’s home address and phone number.
The following morning, Johnson, a supervising social worker, assigned the emergency response referral to Vazquez, who went to Sydney Rieman’s home to conduct her investigation. Vazquez advised Sydney Rieman that she should take the baby to Loma Linda University Medical Center for further evaluation.
Sydney Rieman asked to speak with Vazquez’s supervisor, and drove with her mother and step-father to the CFS office to meet with Johnson. On the way to the office, the family made an appointment for the child to be seen by Dr. Andre Kasko, an obstetrician-gynecologist, for follow-up.
Johnson expressed concern over possible undetected internal injuries and reiterated the urging to take K.B. to Loma Linda. However, at no point was it communicated by any social worker that failure to do so would result in CFS seeking a detention warrant for K.B.
Application for Warrant
Shortly after the family left the CFS office, Vazquez and Johnson drafted an application for a detention warrant under California Welfare and Institution Code §306(a)(1). A juvenile court issued a warrant authorizing law enforcement to temporarily detain K.B. for placement with a licensed approved foster home or relative.
Law enforcement officers attempted to serve the warrant at Sydney Rieman’s home address four times but no one was home during any of the attempts.
Vazquez drafted a dependency petition and detention report pursuant to §300 of the code and scheduled the accompanying detention hearing for Sept. 12, 2018.
The report, signed by Vazquez and Johnson, claimed that Sydney Rieman was not noticed for the detention hearing because her “whereabouts [were] unknown.” It provided a different telephone number than the one listed for the mother in the original emergency response referral.
The Rieman family attempted to contact CFS on several occasions but neither Johnson nor Vazquez called or otherwise attempted to notify Sydney Rieman of the detention hearing. At the hearing, the court ordered K.B. to be detained and removed from his mother’s care and custody and be placed in the custody of CFS.
Sydney Rieman, still unaware of the hearing, did not make an appearance and was forced to relinquish custody to a law enforcement officer when she brought K.B. to Loma Linda a few days later.
K.B. was not returned to his mother until Nov. 20, 2018, nearly two months after his removal.
Absolute Immunity
Vazquez and Johnson alleged that they were entitled to absolute immunity because they were being sued for actions taken in their quasi-prosecutorial role as social workers. Smith acknowledged that there are circumstances under which social workers may enjoy absolute immunity in making discretionary decisions as to whether or not to institute dependency hearings.
However, he wrote that the 2008 Ninth Circuit opinion in Beltran v. Santa Clara County declares that social workers “are not entitled to absolute immunity from claims that they fabricated evidence during an investigation or made false statements in a dependency petition affidavit that they signed under penalty of perjury, because such actions aren’t similar to discretionary decisions about whether to prosecute.”
Noting that the Riemans were not challenging the quasi-prosecutorial decision by Vazquez and Johnson to institute juvenile dependency proceedings, Smith pointed out that neither the actions nor omissions for which Vazquez and Johnson are being sued—i.e., “providing false information to the Juvenile Court and failing to give notice of the hearing” are similar to determinations on whether to prosecute.
He similarly rejected their argument that the “method of notice” was discretionary, rendering it similar to discretionary prosecutorial decisions. The jurist explained:
“[T]he Riemans have not sued Vazquez and Johnson for their method of notice; the Riemans have sued them for failing to provide any notice at all. The parties agree that giving notice of a detention hearing is mandatory under the law. It follows that giving notice is non-discretionary and very much unlike the discretionary decision to initiate a prosecution.”
Lack of Notice
Smith recited that qualified immunity exists where a government official violates a constitutional right that, at the time of the transgression, was “clearly established.”
He noted that Vazquez and Johnson did not dispute that Sydney Rieman had a constitutionally protected due process right to receive notice of the detention hearing, and was not persuaded by their attempt to rely on the unsuccessful service attempts they made on behalf of the temporary warrant to justify their actions.
The jurist declared:
“That the parties dispute whether the Riemans were aware of the temporary detention warrant and were therefore evading it by hiding out in a different county is immaterial. Vazquez and Johnson knew how to contact Ms. Rieman about the detention hearing, but they chose not to even try.”
He similarly rejected the argument that the right to receive notice was not clearly established, writing that the Welfare and Institutions Code required such notice “long before September 2018.”
Judicial Deception
Smith found that the two are not entitled to qualified immunity for their misrepresentation to the court about why Sydney Rieman was not noticed for the hearing. He quoted the 2024 Ninth Circuit case of Scanlon v. County of Los Angeles as saying that the plaintiff in a §1983 action against a social worker, to prevail on a claim of judicial deception, must show “(1) a misrepresentation or omission (2) made deliberately or with a reckless disregard for the truth, that was (3) material to the judicial decision.”
Under that standard, Smith found that the representation made by Vazquez and Johnson in the detention report that Sydney Rieman was “not noticed” because her “whereabouts [were] unknown” was a deliberate, material misrepresentation.
He said the right to be free from judicial deception was clearly established “[l]ong before September 2018.”
The case is Rieman v. Vazquez, 22-50046.
Copyright 2024, Metropolitan News Company